06-04-2025
Alpena-Amberley Ridge shows Michigan wasn't always a ‘pleasant peninsula'
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — 'Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam, Circumspice.' The latin phrase adorns Michigan's , which was adopted back in 1835, two years before Michigan was granted statehood.
It translates to, 'If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.' The motto has been part of the state's framework from the very beginning. But did you know that what we know as Michigan wasn't always a peninsula?
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Research shows a land bridge, now buried under the depths of Lake Huron, once connected Michigan and Canada and was even home to some Paleoindians.
The stretch is called the , named for the two cities closest to the connecting points: Alpena, Michigan, and Amberley, Ontario.
is a professor at the University of Michigan and the curator of Great Lakes Archaeology at the U-M Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. He has been studying the ridge for nearly 20 years and has been able to piece together a lot of information about the people who lived and hunted there.
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The basins of the Great Lakes were formed when the glacial ice sheets moved south in the last ice age and then filled them as those glaciers melted away. But according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the boundaries we are familiar with today only settled to form about 3,000 years ago.
'At the end of the ice age, you get this weird fluctuation where you get very high levels of water in the lakes, and then you get these very low levels as the openings shift,' O'Shea told News 8. 'Around 11,000 years ago, the lake levels all dropped precipitously, more than 100 meters lower than their modern level. And this exposed huge areas of what's modern lake bottom for settlement.'
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'It stayed open for several thousand years,' he continued. 'So what we see then is we see that area being occupied by the resident plant and animal communities, by the local human populations.'
O'Shea said the ridge's outcropping of limestone allowed it to stand taller compared to the surrounding areas that were dug out deeper by the receding glaciers. It also became a bit of a haven of Arctic animals and a fertile hunting ground.
'The other thing that was really curious about (the Alpena-Amberley Ridge) is the climate,' O'Shea noted. 'Because you had this really cold, cold glacial meltwater on both sides, it stayed much colder out there than on the mainland of Michigan or Ontario. The early Holocene (epoch) is seen as a time of warming. So this place actually became really attractive for those ice age animals and plants.'
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Caribou were likely around much longer on the Alpena-Amberley Ridge than in southern Michigan and were a key food source for the local inhabitants. O'Shea's research team has found evidence of along the ridge, similar to those found in other areas of the Arctic in that time frame.
'As it started narrowing, the caribou migrations became really predictable. So we found the hunters actually started building hunting blinds and building different kinds of hunting structures to channel the migratory caribou into kill zones. … A lot of them only work if the animals are moving in one direction,' he explained.
Because the ridge is buried under frigid water, the land and the artifacts it holds are well preserved.
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'There has been no further development. There hasn't been any farming, the stones haven't been moved. And because we are so far offshore, about 50 miles offshore, there's also no sediment,' O'Shea said. 'Everything is left pretty much the way it was when the water finally came and drowned this landscape.
'It's a really interesting kind of preserved 3,000-or-so-year-old window that we have to look at this very early occupation of the Great Lakes.'
Aside from evidence of hunting structures and tools and other artifacts, O'Shea said his most fascinating find is some pieces of .
'We found … a couple of obsidian flakes, which are volcanic glass. And what's neat about this volcanic glass is it is very unique to its source. You can chemically source it very accurately. And the obsidian that we recovered from our first site out there actually comes from Central Oregon,' he said. 'So roughly 10,000 years ago, in some way, shape or form, our guys that are hunting on Lake Huron are connected to the Northwest Pacific Coast, which is kind of mind-blowing.
'Just this last year, we found a second site that also has obsidian that is at a distance. So, it suggests that whatever this kind of connection, this east-west connection, wasn't just a one-off deal.'
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But after more than 15 years of researching the Alpena-Amberley Ridge, O'Shea may have to walk away. Late last year, his team was notified that the was pulling its funding, declaring it 'too risky to support.'
O'Shea noted that the decision was announced before the 2024 presidential election and should not be chalked up to the rash of federal funding cuts. But given the current political climate, he doesn't expect the NSF to reverse its decision.
'I kind of suspect, and this is just a gut-level feeling, that federal support for archaeology is not going to be a very, very high funding priority,' he said.
Still, his team has at least one more 'bite of that apple.' Earlier this year, Michigan alum Stephen Klinsky announced he wanted to fund archaeological research at the university, and O'Shea's proposal was selected.
'He was effectively our white knight. I mean, he appeared out of nowhere,' O'Shea said. 'It's our chance to prove that it all really works. There's no guarantee of anything in the future.'
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The Michigan professor hopes that people's love of history and love of the Great Lakes will help keep his project afloat.
'There's a tremendous amount of public interest in knowing what happened in the Great Lakes,' O'Shea said. 'People are really invested. People that have cottages or work on the lakes are really invested, in understanding. They're fascinated by how the lake changes over time. How it fluctuates. That's our best hope.'
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